aphrodite_mine | Reading

+ I'm back at work, though one day later than I expected to be. It'll be a shorter trip of only four weeks, so now I just need the fishery to be good. I'd love to come home without my brain leaking out my ears; it took me over two weeks to recoup last time.

+ 2026 is shaping up to be a great movie year. I highly recommend both The Testament of Ann Lee and Project Hail Mary, plus there's both Pillion and Dune 3 to look forwards to. I guess I can hope really hard they don't fuck up Ready or Not 2? (I'm definitely showing up either way, if only for the cast)

+ Other things to look forward to: Microsoft Flight Simulator is set to get its VR update sometime next month. So long as it's not borked on the base PS5, that's a day one purchase for me. There's a bunch of cities to fly around, a safari/hot balloon thing, helicopter rescue missions, etc. It might even be just the thing to let my mom play.

+ And on the subject of my mom: she'll be moving back home! My brother and his partner are splitting up, and my nephew is old enough that she doesn't see him that much anymore, so now she's looking for an apartment to buy. I'm really happy about it. Both for my own sake and for hers.

Now I just have to bee diligent with looking for places we can visit in England. Hoping we can do a fun two week vacation there in August.

Tags:

summerstorm

Nabbed from

out_there -- I liked this set of questions, so I decided to break my self-imposed moratorium on this kind of meme and answer them.

50 This or Thats

1. Bagels or donuts?
Bagels. There is something about the specific taste of donuts that really bothers me for some reason.

2. Bar soap or body wash?
Body wash. Soap is way harder to use in the shower and then you end up with a tiny sliver and it's just weird.

3. Being afraid or being embarrassed?
Embarrassed could lead to a panic attack, and it's awful and sometimes you keep going over it years after the fact, but like. Afraid is way worse.

4. Big bash or intimate gathering?
Intimate gathering. I hate crowds.

( cut for space )

Tags:

network: memes all

pauraque

This is part four of my book club notes on The Black Fantastic. [Part 1, part 2, part 3.]

"The Final Flight of the Unicorn Girl" by Alex Smith (2018)

( Superheroes are co-opted into the system as tools of oppression, and younger superpowered people fight back. )

"Calendar Girls" by Justina Ireland (2019)

( In a misogynist dystopia, an illegal contraceptive dealer... well, it's hard to summarize. )

"Shape-ups at Delilah's" by Rion Amilcar Scott (2019)

( A curse causes all barbers to lose their hair-cutting abilities, except for one woman. )

"Habibi" by Tochi Onyebuchi (2020)

( Two young men in solitary confinement, one in California and one in Gaza, forge a magical connection. )

Tags:

goodbyebird

Hey. Psst. Were you one of those kids that would find a pretty rock when out walking and you'd carry it with you for the rest of that adventure and put it in your pocket and whatnot? Go see Project Hail Mary at the cinema. Don't check out the trailer, just go.

(also featured: science! teamwork! nice knitted sweaters!)

Tags:

movies

senmut

sweettartheart had this one!

50 This or Thats

1. Bagels or donuts? Bagels
2. Bar soap or body wash? Bar soap
3. Being afraid or being embarrassed? - yeah neither? Both turn me into rage!beast
4. Big bash or intimate gathering? Intimate, I guess, as I now have crippling social anxiety
5. Board games or video games? Board games
( and the rest )

Tags:

rl: meme

glinda

Oooft, I have missed skating.

(For the newer readers, I used to be a roller derby referee. Roller skating - quad skates - was a big part of my life for the back half of my twenties and my early thirties. I drifted away from it after I moved up to Inverness, but I’ve loved roller skating since I was a little kid, so while I don’t really miss derby these days I do miss skating.)

I’m still on my ice hockey kick after the Olympics and one of the knock-on effects is being really aware of how much I miss skating. I’ve been meaning to check when the public ice skating sessions are and try to convince one of my skating buddies to chum me along to a session for ages, and this weekend I finally did it. And it was great!

I haven’t been on any sort of skates since before the pandemic and I think the last time I was actual ice skates was in Princess Street Gardens just before Xmas 2013 when my then girlfriend decided that would be a cute date idea and then spent the whole session clinging to either the edges or my hand! I wasn’t sure how well it would go, but after a slightly wobbly start it all came back to me satisfyingly fast. (My buddy was even rustier but also got the hang of it eventually, we did a fair bit of skating round holding hands like kids because she’s had a stressful week and was getting into her head about it. That was pretty fun too. We had a lot of fun reminiscing about ice discos from our teen years.) The ice was a mess so I didn’t dare try crossovers or anything too fancy. (The kids team had practice that morning, and I don’t think they bothered to send the zamboni out between sessions as we got there at the start of the session and it was pretty roughed up already.) The rink skates are super rigid so my feet are a bit sore from that - actually I ache all over from nearly 90 minutes of skating, but I had so much fun. My buddy gave up after the first 45 mins of so and went and got a hot drink and heckled from the sidelines while I went zooming around gleefully with a big stupid grin on my face. I was high as a kite, all the good endorphins. We’re going back - or at least we’re going to try the rink at Aviemore instead. I cannot stop grinning!

( I do not need my own ice skates. I do not.)

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: David Guetta feat Sia - Titanium

Tags:

pauraque

This sequel to Maniac Mansion picks up the story five years later, when one of Dr. Fred's tentacle monster creations accidentally drinks toxic sludge that gives him super intelligence and an unquenchable thirst to take over the world. This brings Bernard (the nerdy kid from the first game) back to the mansion, this time with his college roommates Hoagie (a laid-back metalhead) and Laverne (an endearingly nutty medical student). Dr. Fred tries to send the trio back in time to prevent the catastrophe, but Hoagie ends up 200 years in the past with no electricity to power his time pod, and Laverne ends up 200 years in the future when tentacles reign and keep humans as their pets. As the player you control all three protagonists and guide them to ensure that the terrible, eponymous Day of the Tentacle never dawns.

nerdy kid with glasses stands in a hotel lobby with gum with a dime stuck in it highlighted

nerdy kid with glasses stands in a hotel lobby with gum with a dime stuck in it highlighted

This was one of my favorite games as a kid, but I hadn't played it since the remastered re-release came out, ten years ago today. When I was looking into it I noticed that it happens to be the #1 rated DOS title on MobyGames. Is this actually the best DOS game of all time? Let us investigate!

( Read more... )

Day of the Tentacle Remastered is available on various platforms for $14.99 USD, and on Steam it's currently on sale for $2.99 USD, so if you never got around to it, now's the time!

Tags:

fiachairecht

In one (1)!! specific way — I suspect I already know the answer to this, because unlike most of fandom I did actually watch the season 1 that the Kates gave me and not the season 1 in my head, but new season new possibilities however extremely slight for disappointment!

Anyway, does s2 end with Cath and Dulcie still together y/n.

('Kimara can't you spoil that for yourself' not without seeing both shitty opinions on Cath and also spoilers for other things, so I don't wanna.)

Tags:

tv:deadloch

chocolatepot

Just wrote an AH answer for a question that I'd had open in a tab for very nearly two weeks. I love doing that, it feels so much more like an accomplishment if the unanswered question has been bugging me for a while; I get to feel relieved to finally have it off my plate. Hashtag ADHD life.

Likewise trying to organize my writing in terms of plates. The not-Fandom Trumps Hate piece is more than 75% done, so the Regency romance is going to abide for a bit while I just focus on this one thing. And then I will have it done and can stop feeling guilty about it. And then I might celebrate with work on an actual fanfic for a bit, get another chapter in of this very self-indulgent SVSSS genderbend, before going back to work that I intend to sell. (When will I edit Grand and Glorious Feeling? When will I publish Arrow Collar Man? I don't knowwwww, it's scary to put your work out there and depressing to sell like ten copies in six months.)

I will also be mailing out copies of Dandies & Dandyzettes very very soon, and having THAT off my plate and not feeling guilty about it anymore will be incredible. I think it will fix me.

SO many excellent things to watch these days. Serially, I'm most engaged with The Pitt (what a glorious mess!!), but I've been slowly watching the new BBC adaptation of Lord of the Flies, which is really excellent on multiple levels. So well done, strongly recommend it.

Have to go to Philadelphia for work next week. Have to DRIVE AROUND in Philadelphia for work next week. Have to drive around in DOWNTOWN PHILLY AROUND INDEPENDENCE HALL AND THE LIBERTY BELL. I am so pissed off but am coming to a point of resigned acceptance that a) I can't get out of it and b) I may very well cry in front of my deputy on those days. So it goes.

Tags:

job,
writing

senmut

AO3 Link | Distraction from Grief (200 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Birds of Prey
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sandra Wu-San, Dinah Lance
Additional Tags: Double Drabble, +Modern Age (1986-Present), Post-Crisis, [Birds of Prey Vol. 1 - 1999-2009]
Summary:

Shiva pushes, so Dinah can put it behind.

Distraction from Grief

Move. Evaluate. Decide. Commit.

Shiva was making her work through her grief for Sensei in the way that mattered, now that they had foiled Cheshire's plan. Both of them excelled in the Arts, but the difference was being felt in every muscle, joint, and tendon as Dinah worked through the spar.

Shiva was a master, effortless in blending her many forms to always meet any rally that Dinah made, preventing Dinah from winning. Yet, Dinah also recognized that Shiva was having to rely on that blending to keep the upper hand.

In a formal, single style spar, Dinah and Shiva would likely be evenly matched.

Like this?

Dinah had to smile, a genuine one, to be pushed so far, so hard, so long.

Was that what Shiva had been waiting for? As the next move saw Dinah on the mats and Shiva pinning her, full length, hand in knife-strike pose at her throat.

"You choose life, not dwelling on death," Shiva purred, and damned if that didn't make Dinah remember other aspects of living that were worthwhile.

"Care to live a little with me, grab a hot soak, some good food?"

"Sensualist."

And yet, they moved together in that plan.

Tags:

pauraque

The other week we had a bunch of above-freezing days and made quite a bit of headway in melting the snow. There were even places where you could see the ground! At one point I was out walking and I wasn't even wearing a coat, and some guy walking past me who was certainly old enough to know better opened his arms expansively and announced in glee, "It's finally here!!" I just smiled and didn't disillusion him.

Shortly afterward, the temperatures plummeted back down to the teens Fahrenheit (single digits below zero C) and stayed there, and yesterday we got several inches of snow, so the ground is well covered again.

The birds, however, are certainly aware that winter will end eventually, and are continuing their preparations. The year-round residents are doing more singing and less quiet foraging, and the early migrators are starting to roll in. I've heard flocks of Canada Geese honking over the neighborhood and seen Turkey Vultures wheeling and teetering through the sky. (In the dead of winter we only see Black Vultures, which can find carrion by sight; Turkey Vultures need to smell it, so below-freezing temperatures are a problem for them.) Walking around town I saw the Common Grackles are back, and I heard the year's first Red-winged Blackbird call from the muddy fields near the grocery store. I spotted a Song Sparrow quietly hanging out with our usual Dark-eyed Junco group in the yard (looking a bit underdressed in his casual stripes next to the juncos' tuxedos), and the next day he was singing.

A lot of people associate American Robins with spring, but not all individuals migrate. Even in the coldest part of the winter I still see them occasionally out in the woods. But the ones who do migrate are definitely on their way in, and before it started snowing again there were even enough open lawns in the neighborhood for them to forage there. I always find it funny how they spread out equally spaced when they forage, almost in a grid.

Since my last bird update I also added Pine Siskin and European Starling to my year list. They've been around, I just hadn't seen them since New Year. Pine Siskins should actually be heading out soon, as they breed further north, in Canada. I love their buzzy little upward zipper call.

So that's 46 birds for my 2026 list so far. Soon the main migration wave will hit and it'll fill up faster!

Tags:

pauraque

The Ainu are an indigenous people native to northern Japan and nearby parts of Russia. Kayano Shigeru (1926-2006) was a leading activist for Ainu rights in Japan, and eventually became the first Ainu member of the Japanese legislature. But his career in the Diet came after the publication of this book, which mixes memoir, history, and ethnography.

Kayano relates what he knows of his people's oppression in the 19th century, when the Japanese government pushed many Ainu groups onto marginal land and conscripted people for forced labor at minimal pay. This leads into his own childhood, when his family's generational poverty was exacerbated by his father's alcoholism. As a young man Kayano came to feel ashamed of being Ainu, culminating in a demeaning job at an Ainu-themed attraction, performing sacred dances five times a day for gawking tourists.

But the tourists' ignorant questions sparked Kayano's realization that there should be a real Ainu museum curated by actual Ainu people and fostering respect for their culture. He was inspired to travel the Ainu lands collecting one traditional tool or piece of clothing at a time (and always paying the people who made them) and eventually succeeded in opening the museum and renewing his own sense of pride in his heritage.

This short book highlights important issues, but I have to be honest—I found the presentation pretty dry. Maybe it's partly the translation? I also noticed that Ainu women weren't given much attention; Kayano has a wife, but her only character trait shown in the book is "supportive of her husband". But I'd say the book is still a good resource on a significant figure in global indigenous rights.

(As an aside: This book was on my TBR list for at least 15 years. This year I'm really trying to either read some of the long-time lingerers or admit I'm not going to read them, so having read this is a great success for me!)

Tags:

goodbyebird

+ London, San Francisco and Beijing achieve ‘remarkable reductions’ in air pollution.
“This report shows that cities can achieve what was once thought impossible: cutting toxic air pollution by 20-45% in a little over a decade,” said Cecilia Vaca Jones, executive director of Breathe Cities, one of the organisations behind the report. “This isn’t just happening in one corner of the world; from Warsaw to Bangkok, cities are proving that we have the tools to solve this crisis right now.”

+ Fifty years after New Zealand stopped whaling, humpback population showing signs of recovery.

+ Two pairs of beavers released in Cornwall.
Beavers became extinct from the wild in England more than 400 years ago due to hunting for their pelts, meat and glands.
The charity said beavers were increasingly recognised as one of nature's most important keystone species - animals whose presence shapes entire ecosystems.

+ The river otter’s remarkable comeback.

+ European Parliament Votes Overwhelmingly For "The Full Recognition Of Trans Women As Women".
Significantly, the vote gathered support not only from left-leaning groups but also from the majority of the European People's Party, the largest and most powerful center-right bloc in the European Parliament. The center-right support drew sharp criticism from the far right: the Patriots for Europe group, which includes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Fidesz and French far-right leader Marine Le Pen's National Rally, voted against the resolution and denounced its exclusion from negotiations over the text. The European Conservatives and Reformists, the group of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia, also voted against. But their combined opposition was not enough to block the resolution, which passed with support from a broad cross-ideological majority.

+ Ireland’s basic income for the arts scheme becomes permanent.

+ Why comics needs its own Criterion Closet, an inside look at THE STACKS.

+ stop counting. what you love matters..
Cardiff University's Dr Lucy Bennett put it well in that same piece: "Once taste is turned into a scoreboard with ratings, competition then inevitably follows." Which, yes — but I'd push that further. Competition doesn't just follow. It replaces something. In the war to protect a number, the actual shows get swallowed whole. Nobody in these review threads is talking about what made "Ozymandias" so devastating, or what any of these subsequent shows did differently. They’re just defending territory. The number had stopped being a representation of the thing and had become the thing itself.

+ Marvel Comics has the optimisation sickness.
The current status quo at Marvel seems to be that if a storyline is successful they'll publish too many comics about it and it will get derailed. If a storyline isn't successful enough they'll publish too many comics about it and it will get derailed.

+ The Secretive Company Filling Video Game Sites With Gambling And AI.
Chris Button, an Australian tech journalist and former contributor, wasn't pleased to see his old profile alongside the AI authors. All of his former articles were edited to include closing sections pointing to casino and betting guides. He attempted to have his author profile removed by emailing the new management of GamesHub, but he never received a response. However, he no longer appears on the Meet the Team page. Button is disappointed with what the site has become. "Seeing GamesHub transformed into a site promoting gambling is devastating, not just for those who wrote for the site, but for the industry the publication championed", he said.

+ Friendly reminder that The Importance of Being Earnest is available to watch for free a little while longer. Chaotic fun, highly recommend.

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pauraque

This Flash game by Argentine developer Daniel Benmergui presents a scene with a woman in a rowboat looking up at a man sitting on the moon. As the player you can snap photos of different portions of the scene and move them around, leading to different resolutions of the scenario.

*Is this some sort of romantic game that I'm too aro to understand?*

I do remember this game making the rounds in the late 2000s and being held up as evidence on the pro side of the burgeoning "can video games be art?" debate. Personally I have always found this debate tedious and misguided, proving nothing except that "art" is a poorly defined term which is used to arbitrarily judge elements of culture as worthy or unworthy. So that's probably why I never clicked any of the links to I Wish I Were the Moon.

Coming to it now, my strongest impression is that it doesn't demonstrate anything about art, but it does demonstrate (yet again) that I am extremely aromantic. The game is supposed to be a representation of a love triangle; I do know that. But it makes my brain do the thing that it's been doing my entire life, which is to interpret romantic scenarios that I don't understand as anything other than what they are intended to be. (My brain does this especially with songs, which tend to be worded vaguely enough that it's easy to do. This breakup song could be about a friendship turning sour! This passionate love ballad could be about any kind of love and it doesn't even have to be about a person! It could be about a city or a fandom or a celestial body!!)

So what is the moon in this game? It's something the man loves which is separating him from the woman in the rowboat. Who says it has to be a person? It could be his career or his faith or his family or just about anything! I guess you could argue that one of the essential qualities of art is that it's open to interpretation, but let's not and say we did.

The 2008 version of I Wish I Were the Moon is playable in a Flash emulator here. In 2022 the developer also offered a free remaster on his itch.io page here, but I have to say I think it lacks some of the charm of the original.

Tags:

senmut

AO3 Link | Not Alone (300 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Justice League (Franchise)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: J'onn J'onnz & Dinah Lance
Characters: J'onn J'onzz, Dinah Lance
Additional Tags: +Modern Age (1986-Present), Post-Crisis, Triple Drabble
Summary:

After everything with the White Martians and his brother, Dinah is there

Not Alone

The next time J'onn woke, it was no longer Bruce with him, but Dinah. He closed his eyes once more, strangely loathe to have her be the one to see him this reduced.

He knew he would be just as bad with Arthur.

There was an unspoken bond between the three of them, the last of the five original that had faced the Appellaxian warriors, leading to the formation of the Justice League in its original incarnation. For one of them to be reduced nearly to destruction —

"You mean like when Arthur's entire world was brought down around his ears and we nearly lost him to grief-madness? Or when I got myself stupidly caught and died at least twice on the hospital table?"

He had to open his eyes, chagrin among his emotions as he realized the telepathic connection had not been shielded at all. She moved from the chair and got up in the recovery bed with him, careful of the tech monitoring his status.

"You were upset that neither of us reached out, that we locked you out of being able to help us then. And we got the point. We three, we have each other, among the many we've brought in since then.

"Let me in, and Arthur as soon as he gets free, so we can help you recover."

J'onn didn't trust his mind or his voice to express any of what he was feeling, but she reacted, bringing a hand up along one angular cheek as she settled her head on his shoulder.

"You're not broken. You had to make a very harsh, hateful call against a man you shared a genetic pattern with. And you did so at great cost to yourself.

"But you will heal. And we are with you the whole way."

Tags:

goodbyebird

+ Dune Messiah traile dropped! I treated myself to one peek and one peek only. But I am vibrating.

Watch on YouTube

+ The mountain in the middle of town is ah. On fire. 240 evacuated so far, including two of my friends and two of my friends' parents. Real windy outside. Not a good time.

Current Location: an increasingly dense smoke

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senmut

AO3 Link | Reasons (300 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) [2020]
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Dinah Lance ~ Renee Montoya
Characters: Dinah Lance, Renee Montoya
Additional Tags: Triple Drabble, Canon Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships
Summary:

Dinah can't handle being the reason... but can see why.

Reasons

"What the fuck was that?"

Renee looked at the singer turned vigilante and didn't have a great answer for her, Dinah just knew, seeing it in the woman's fading fear — for Dinah — and the drop of her eyes.

"Got a little nervy is all," she decided to say. "Cop reflexes, all that."

Dinah's eyes went narrow, before she sucked in a breath and spun away, unleashing the full Cry on the alley, stopping the gang advance, pinning several with trash bins and debris from the sheer force of it.

Her gaze flicked to the rapist-murderer laying there, dead from a single shot through his forehead.

"Let's get outta here." She stalked off, knowing good and damn well no one would look too close into the death, that Renee wouldn't pay the price for the killing —

— but Dinah would have rather never have been the reason Renee squeezed off the round.

Renee followed; Dinah hadn't told her not to, and they really needed to hash this out without Harley or the kid or anyone else butting in.

"You held your mom's death against me for years."

The quiet words, spoken three blocks over, threw cold water on Dinah's temper.

"I don't. Not now. She… she made choices too."

"Yeah, but… I knew what those choices cost you, and I hate it. I can't… you… I need you to make it out of this shit alive."

Dinah took a breath, then another, before she put a hand on Renee's forearm. "Goes both ways, now. I need you to keep breathing, kicking ass with me, and make it count when we finally decide we can walk away.

"Not for mom. For me."

"Yeah, I get that. I'm going to try harder to remember you make your own choices, but it's hard."

"Always is."

Tags:

pauraque

I liked this book when it was a fantasy noir starring a biracial knife-throwing assassin with magic hands in 1940s New York who's trying to get out of the business but keeps getting pulled back in. But that book wraps up about a third of the way through the actual book. Then it turns into a completely different book where the assassin moves upstate with her boyfriend and the story becomes about slimy small town politics and the characters' profound guilt for their actions in the city, and I became increasingly confused about what the book was trying to do and decreasingly satisfied with my reading experience.

Part of the problem is that Dev (the boyfriend) kind of rubbed me the wrong way and I didn't feel invested in the romance between him and Phyllis (the assassin), so shifting the focus more to their relationship was not going to work well for me. I actually liked both characters less and less as the book went on, and by the end I was feeling pretty fed up with both of them. A late promotion to the group of main characters is Tamara, Dev's ex, who comes to have a close bond with Phyllis as well. There is some interesting complexity to the dynamic of this trio, but I ended up frustrated with the way it was handled.

relationship endgame spoilers

It seemed to me that this was going in a poly triad direction, and then backed off of it. And I mean... it's not not poly. Phyllis, Dev, and Tamara have a one-night threesome, and Tamara also has a boyfriend who's deployed overseas, and in general it is not a book that assumes people only love one person at a time. I did appreciate that. What specifically threw me was this passage in Tamara's POV:

Sure, she and Phyllis had kissed that night with Dev and even now, in certain light, she didn't mind the notion of touching Pea [Phyllis] until she came. But the love she felt wasn't really that kind—it was a blood love, a bone love, and it ricocheted off of her other loves at unexpected angles.

Maybe I'm misreading the author's intention in pushing away the idea that Tamara's love for Phyllis is "that kind", or maybe I'm misunderstanding what "that kind" is supposed to be. But to me it read like the poly dynamic was being held at arm's length, which was not the direction I'd hoped it would go. I guess the Tamara/Phyllis relationship is ambiguous and not clearly defined as (queer)platonic or romantic, which sometimes I like, but the way it was presented here didn't land for me.

I also didn't understand what we were supposed to take away from the reveal of how the magic in the book works.

worldbuilding and plot spoilers

Only certain rare people have magic, and only people of color. It's eventually shown that the magic is a gift from their ancestors, who intended for their descendants to use it to fight white oppression. But if the ancestors are displeased with how the magic is used, the magic can turn against its holder or disappear completely. This explains why Phyllis loses control of her hands—the ancestors wanted her to assassinate the sadistic mob boss Vic (who is white), but by that point Phyllis wanted to stop killing so she didn't do it. She spends the rest of the book trying to make amends for the murders she's committed, yet her hands continue to torment her for not killing Vic, and she eventually sickens and dies. Dev, who also has magic, does kill Vic, and is tortured by guilt for the rest of the book, and he also dies. Tamara has magic too, and also becomes consumed with guilt because even though she never hurt anyone directly, she worked for Vic and looked the other way; she tries to sacrifice herself to save Phyllis but doesn't succeed.

To me it ended up reading like the characters were being punished for not living up to binding magical agreements that they never consented to or even knew about, which override their own agency and moral convictions. What are the ancestors trying to accomplish here? How does any of this help in the fight against racism? We're told that magic is getting rarer, but it's not really explained why. I know it's not because people of color in the 1940s don't need the help, and I can't imagine the author is saying it's because they're not worthy of it, but... what, then? Phyllis and Dev's daughter is supposed to have extraordinary powers, but I don't think that's explained either and I didn't have a clear sense of what she's expected to do. The whole cosmology of the book didn't make sense to me.

It sucks because I find Johnson's prose excellent, and the first third worked so well for me. I really didn't want to have to say I don't like this book! But alas, here we are.

Tags:

senmut

AO3 Link | Sound of Crashing (300 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: DC Comics (General)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lian Harper & Dinah Lance
Characters: Dinah Lance, Lian Harper
Additional Tags: Triple Drabble, Slice of Life, +Modern Age (1986-Present), Post-Crisis
Summary:

Dinah is babysitting...

Sound of Crashing

The moment she heard the crash, Dinah was on her feet and moving, uncaring what had been broken as long as it wasn't that little girl who had stolen her heart. She skidded into the kitchen before Lian had made her escape from the counter, the drawers askew to let Dinah know how the girl had gotten up there on it. She was beside the refrigerator, from which the ceramic cookie jar in the shape of a coyote had tumbled to the floor.

The cookie jar was not salvageable. Lian's face was a picture of contriteness, and Dinah just moved to get her down.

"You sit on right here, Dart," Dinah said, depositing her on the kitchen table which was at least lower than the counter. "Until I get the pieces swept up, the floor is lava and you don't have firefighter boots!"

"Didn't mean to break Mąʼii."

"I know, sweetie. And you did a lot of problem solving to figure out how to get it while I was on the phone. But next time, you should ask, and I can help." Dinah found the broom and a bucket, picking up the larger pieces before sweeping up the rest of the debris. She's need to get a box or a large jug to put the shards in, but for now, she just wanted it off the floor.

"Okay, so I need to find a new cookie jar, and we're going to need new cookies," Dinah said. "Ready to go shopping?"

"Yes!"

Dinah reached for the girl, picking her up and settling her on a hip, even if Lian was a little big for that, especially for her shortness. She hugged Lian tight, glad nothing had been hurt on her.

"You do have to tell your daddy you're sorry."

"Will do!"

Tags:

pauraque

When I was a kid I had two artillery games: Tank Wars and QBasic Gorillas.

side by side screenshots of two artillery games, one on a green battlefield with visible firing arcs in a starry sky, the other with gorillas standing on skyscrapers — *Left: Tank Wars. Right: QBasic Gorillas*

Both games share the same basic concept. You and your opponent sit on opposite ends of a battlefield and take turns lobbing projectiles at one another in parabolic arcs, adjusting the angle and power of each shot to try to land a hit.

Tank Wars, created by Kenneth Morse, allows you to customize a myriad of game options, from windspeed to the color of the sky. You can play hotseat multiplayer, or if you have a keyboard and a mouse (fancy!) you and a friend can huddle around the computer together and split the controls. If your friends are unavailable there are CPU opponents of various levels of skill, from "Mr. Stupid" to "Wind Master". As you rack up points you can buy bombs with different blast radii, and when you win the terrain blows up in a satisfying crater and rains back down on the field in an elaborate shower of pixels.

QBasic Gorillas came with MS-DOS 5.0 and was created by Microsoft as a demonstration of the capabilities of the QBasic programming language. You and your opponent are gorillas who throw exploding bananas, and when you win, you do the Monkey.

Tank Wars is, I suppose, the "better" of the two games, in the sense of having more sophisticated graphics and gameplay. But does it have dancing gorillas? Does it have exploding bananas? Does it have a cartoon sun that makes a face like 😮 if you manage to hit it? I ask you. I did play both games a lot, but I know which one was more appealing to my sensibilities as a child of 8-9 years of age.

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Marcia

August 2024

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goodbyebird - Buttering my muffin.
summerstorm - a little meme
pauraque - The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories, ed. andré m. carrington (2025) [part 4]
goodbyebird - Go treat your inner child.
senmut - meme time!
glinda - Glinda Go Zoom!
pauraque - Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle (1993/2016)
fiachairecht - spoil deadloch s2 for me
chocolatepot - A rare public entry
senmut - 10trueloves: loss
pauraque - yes we've had one, but what about second winter?
pauraque - Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir by Kayano Shigeru (1980)
goodbyebird - Fire is under control, celebratory linkspam? :D
pauraque - I Wish I Were the Moon (2008/2022)
senmut - 10trueloves: broken
goodbyebird - I guess we uh, take the good with the bad.
senmut - 10trueloves: overprotective
pauraque - Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson (2020)
senmut - 10trueloves: accident
pauraque - Tank Wars (1990) · QBasic Gorillas (1991)

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Page generated Mar. 26th, 2026 08:49 pm

the lonesome lows don't quite go away overnight

(fall to pieces, treat the rush)

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Buttering my muffin.

a little meme

The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories, ed. andré m. carrington (2025) [part 4]

Go treat your inner child.

meme time!

Glinda Go Zoom!

Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle (1993/2016)

spoil deadloch s2 for me

A rare public entry

10trueloves: loss

yes we've had one, but what about second winter?

Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir by Kayano Shigeru (1980)

Fire is under control, celebratory linkspam? :D

I Wish I Were the Moon (2008/2022)

10trueloves: broken

I guess we uh, take the good with the bad.

10trueloves: overprotective

Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson (2020)

10trueloves: accident

Tank Wars (1990) · QBasic Gorillas (1991)

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August 2024

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